The typical rack oven provides a chamber for discontinuous baking or otherwise treating goods placed on a rack which is generally wheeled into the chamber. Air or other gaseous fluid is circulated within the chamber to treat the goods, e.g., bake or thaw. Uniform treatment is required to properly prepare most goods. Several means have been devised for accomplishing uniform treatment.
A recent development is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,641,945 wherein the chamber is equipped with a drive member which lifts the rack from the oven floor and rotates the rack in a continuous path to insure uniform treatment. Such an oven requires several moving parts, many of which are exposed to the goods under treatment. Health standards require that the oven be maintained in a clean condition, and the presence of such exposed mechanism hinders the cleaning operation to a large degree. Moreover, the lifting and rotating mechanism requires numerous controls and the like which further complicates the operation of the oven.
It is an object of this invention to provide a rack oven affording a uniform treatment of the goods. A more specific object is to provide a rack oven affording uniform treatment of the goods which is simple, easily cleaned, and eliminates numerous moving parts.
These and other objects are provided in the present invention by an oven comprising an oven chamber for receiving goods to be treated, conduit means, rotor means for sequentially delivering gaseous treating medium to said conduit means during rotation of said rotor means, said conduit means communicating with said oven chamber for conveying said medium to said oven chamber according to a predetermined flow pattern providing substantially uniform treatment of said goods.
The conduit means with which the rotor means communicates may include a series of intercommunicating elements which provide a passage for the gaseous treating medium from the rotating member to the chamber containing the racked goods. The combination of all such series of elements produces a pattern of flow across the oven chamber which provides uniform treatment of the goods. A series of elements may include a stationary member which receives the treating medium directly from the outlet of the rotor means and conveys the medium to a vertical extending duct via a nozzle extending into the duct. From the duct, the medium exits through a port leading to a louvered wall defining one of the sides of the oven chamber. The medium passes through the louvers and across the chamber where it exits from the chamber through opposing louvers. The spent medium retraces its path through a second series of like elements except that the rotor means is bypassed and the spent medium returned via recirculating ducting to a chamber where the medium is reinstated to its treating condition. Neither the goods being treated nor the rack upon which the goods are placed need be moved during the treatment.